Most digital point and shoot cameras have optical zoom lenses that allow you to vary their focal length and change the size of an image being captured on the imaging chip.

In most camera advertising, zoom lenses are often described by the ratio of their longest to shortest focal lengths. A zoom lens with focal lengths ranging from 100-400 mm is often described as a 4:1 or alternatively 4X zoom, a specification I dislike because it ignores the starting and ending focal lengths that I think are much more important that just the ratio.

For an example of an extreme optical zoom camera, you can read my review of the Nikon Coolpix P1000 that has a 125x zoom ratio here.

Many cameras these day, even sophisticated mirrorless cameras, also offer a digital zoom feature that is produced by cropping the captured image in-camera and then interpolating (making it larger) to emulate the camera’s maximum resolution. This process always produces a lower quality photograph than that what would normally be captured with an optical zoom lens because you are tossing away parts of the original’s image resolution.

Question: Was this classic car at top cropped or was it photographed using a digital zoom and does it even matter?

Answer: It was cropped from the original photograph—after the fact.

You can achieve the same effect as a digital zoom by cropping the original file with even the least expensive image-editing program.

So what’s the big deal about digital zoom? It’s all about marketing not photography, so don’t be fooled when the manufacturer erroneously combines the ratios of both optical and digital zooms giving you double the amount of worthless information.

For more about cropping please read my post “How I Crop My Drag Racing Photographs.”

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Dick Stolley who many consider Time-Life’s best Managing Editor once said that a successful photograph elicited a “Gasp Factor” from the viewer. Stolley went on to say that if an image stopped the reader, forced them to take a second look at it, read the story’s headline, and then perhaps the rest of the story, the photograph passed his test.

Often the best photographs are made under less than ideal lighting conditions. These images are often made on dark cloudy stormy days, at the crack of dawn, at sunset, or in the dark of the night.

There are few secrets about capturing images when light is low. The ingredients are a simple and include fast lenses, high ISO settings, and a maybe camera support. What sets a successful image apart from a less successful one is how these ingredients are combined, so it’s important to have most of your work done in advance. Before snapping the shutter, you should already know which ISO setting and lenses you’ll use. That’s why it’s a good idea to scout the location and determine the best spot to place your camera so you are free to concentrate on properly framing the image.

How I Made this Shot:At Cruise night in pre-pandemic Encinitas, California… Camera used was a Canon EOS 30D with EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens (at 53mm.) A slow shutter speed was used to add a sense of motion and produce light streaks, naturally in-camera—no Photoshop used. Sv exposure was 0.3 seconds at f/9 and ISO 800.

It’s much easier to take photographs in low light with an f/1.4 or f/2.0 lens than with an f/4.5 or f/5.6 lens because it produces a bright viewfinder on a DSLR but this is not necessarily true for the current generation of mirrorless cameras with high-res EVF’s. Camera companies usually sell two or three similar lenses in the same focal length range and many designed to work under normal lighting conditions, although this trends is fats changing. In photographic terms, “normal” means outdoors on sunny day. In the real world, “normal” lighting may be overcast weather, under the shade of trees or buildings, in brightly lit rooms or at night in city streets.

Not surprisingly, zoom lenses come in fast or slow varieties. Basic kit zoom lenses have maximum apertures ranging from f/3.8 to f/4, f/4.5, and even f/5.6 with many slow zoom lenses have a floating maximum f/stop. That means the maximum opening changes within the lens’ zoom range. For a 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom, for example at 24mm the maximum aperture is  f/3.5. But as the lens is zoomed toward the telephoto end, that maximum aperture gradually shifts to f/5.6. The downside is that fast lenses cost more and with DSLR and mirrorless camera’s performance getting better and better at high ISO’s, is the fast lens going to go the way of the passenger pigeon? I don’t think so because; right now anyway, nothing can replace that big, bright image in the viewfinder.

If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat Joe to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here.

Along with photographer Barry Staver, Joe is co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photograph that’s still available from Amazon for $21.81 with used copies selling for around five bucks. For some reason, the Kindle price is really high.